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''Keep your eye on Gaza this August,'' an Israeli political scientist warned us. ''You may see all hell break loose.''

A high-ranking U.S. diplomat was more optimistic, though cautiously so: ''The window of opportunity for peace is open,'' he assured us, ''though not as wide as we had thought.''

We are two non-experts, a Jew and a Christian, a businessman and an academic, invited to Israel as representatives of Muhlenberg College for an ''Institute for College and University Presidents'' organized by the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the United Jewish Communities, and their local affiliate, the Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley. The visit took place July 11-16.

We enjoyed extraordinary access to key decision-makers and opinion shapers, including the chief justice of Israel's Supreme Court, members of the Knesset ( Israel's parliament), the director general of Israel's Ministry for Foreign Affairs, former U.S. Special Envoy Dennis Ross, U.S. Chief of Mission Gene Kurtz, and other scholars, journalists and officials. We did not meet with any spokespersons for the Palestinian Authority, so our understanding of the Palestinian perspective is limited.

After six days of discussion, we remain non-experts, but are convinced that what happens next in Israel and the Gaza Strip will be of immense importance to those who yearn for peace in the Holy Land.

This important moment springs from Israel's unilateral decision to ''disengage'' from the Gaza Strip, removing 9,000 Jewish settlers and turning control of the area over to Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority. This unprecedented move has generated bitter controversy both among Israelis and Palestinian factions. Some have speculated that mass arrests, perhaps 50,000 or more Israeli protesters, might spell the end of disengagement and the collapse of Ariel Sharon's government.

On the Palestinian side, divisions have deepened between hard-liners in Islamic Jihad and Hamas, and the Palestinian Authority. Before our departure, gun fights broke out in the streets of Gaza between Hamas members and Palestinian Authority police.

''Complexity'' hardly begins to describe the situation. We were exposed to powerful arguments against disengagement. Knesset member Uri Stern warned us that disengagement gives up land without securing any concessions in return, rewards terrorists, encourages further violence, and will result in strategic vulnerability if Gaza becomes an arsenal and a staging area for further attacks on Israel. (The day before our departure, The Jerusalem Post reported 100 rockets launched by Hamas from Gaza at Israeli villages).

There are other issues: Will the departing settlers leave a sufficient economic and industrial infrastructure to permit a smooth transition and development of a viable Palestinian economy? Is disengagement from Gaza a first step toward withdrawal from all '' Occupied Territories,'' including the West Bank (a scenario tagged ''Gaza First'')? Or, is Sharon serious when he maintains no further disengagement is contemplated (''Gaza First and Last'')? Indeed, why should Israel disengage at all?

Hebrew University political science professor Reuven Hazan answered the latter question by referring to ''the three Ds'' — democracy, demographics and disengagement — in relation to Israel's founding principle as a democratic Jewish state. Demographic trends define Israel's current dilemma and dictate its timetable for resolving it. With Arab birth rates more than double those of the Jewish population, full annexation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including full citizenship for Palestinian residents, would produce a Muslim majority in Israel within the next electoral cycle. This would pose a mortal threat to the survival of a Jewish state. On the other hand, for Jews to rule over a disenfranchised Palestinian majority would mean the end of democracy in Israel. It would, Professor Hazan observes, produce nothing less than another Middle Eastern version of apartheid.

Only by defining its borders to secure a Jewish majority within them, and witnessing the development of a peaceful and prosperous Palestinian neighbor beyond those borders, does Israel have a chance to remain both Jewish and democratic. The security fence, which we saw at several locations in Jerusalem and the north, seems to be an essential element of this disengagement strategy.

The relationship between Jews and Palestinians looks like a catastrophically failed marriage, in which anger and distrust so overwhelm both partners that no reconciliation seems possible. Professor Hazan accepts this analogy: ''They hate us and we hate them,'' he admits, ''and the best thing for us both is probably a divorce — even if we have to continue living next door to each other.'' This is the classic two-state position, and it seems to represent the most optimistic resolution of Israel's dilemma.

It is not so clear, however, that Palestinian leaders see ''divorce'' as their best option. While the longing for political independence seems strong, the sting of a half-century of military humiliations is still raw. With demographics on their side, some Palestinians may oppose disengagement in the hope that Israel will eventually be forced to enfranchise them, resulting in a single-state ultimately dominated by a numerically greater Palestinian population.

What happens in Gaza now may well determine the future of this ancient and deeply divided land. As our visit neared its end, we spent a morning touring the recently completed Holocaust Museum at Yad Vashem, and the especially moving memorial to the 1.5 million children who died at the hands of the Nazis.

Architecturally, the museum is a magnificent fusion of form and message — a concrete-lined gash in the Mountain of Remembrance, filled with heart-rending memorabilia of the Holocaust's 6 million victims. At the end, the dark tunnel opens onto a sunlit platform, overlooking a peaceful Jerusalem. Let us all hope that this also is a fitting metaphor for the future of Israelis and Palestinians.

Peyton R. Helm is president of Muhlenberg College in Allentown. Joseph B. Scheller lives in Orefield and is the former CEO of Silberline Manufacturing Co. Inc.